Their guide then stopped in the great hall of the Library. He briefly looked around the numerous shelves extending as far as the eye could see, furiously searching for something. His stare seemed to settle on a point on the opposite wall, as if he could not see anything else in that magnificent space, as if his life depended on it. He was transfixed, but his face retained its mask of gentle expression, occasionally blighted by colour in his cheeks or knocked into the shape of a crooked smile.
Giorgos and Aristo’s eyes followed the guide’s gaze and settled on a strange small statue in a niche at eye level, above a shelf that seemed to hold a collection of strange manuscripts different from the others. They went close to study this little creation. It just did not fit in this exalted space.
They looked around at the statues having pride of place in their little heavily adorned niches near the ceiling. They seemed to have a theme, except for the small statue, which at closer inspection turned out to be a bust.
‘It looks Byzantine. What is it doing here?’
‘That’s what I would like to know.’
‘Aristo, the face looks familiar…’ Giorgos stopped and turned around as if in search of something. ‘Wait a minute. Where’s the guide? He seems to have just vanished into thin air. He was standing right there only a moment ago. And another thing, I cannot hear birdsong or the running water.’ He stared at the fountain. ‘Aristo it looks as if time has stopped, but we are still conscious and moving. What’s going on?’
Without warning the bust’s features became distorted and it came alive and started to speak. At the same time another voice rose behind them. They turned and they saw the guide standing before them again. Where had he disappeared to earlier?
The guide suddenly stopped talking. A huge smile broke on his face, which turned into a malevolent laugh that echoed around the hollowed space, building in volume and intensity to a high crescendo. The walls and the shelves were resonating.
Aristo felt his own body resonating. He looked over at Giorgos. He too seemed to be resonating and at the same frequency, like a suspension bridge tossed about by an earthquake. They both hit the ground at the same time, writhing in agony, covering their ears, holding their heads in their hands and shaking their head from side to side, in a vain attempt to banish this torture. The ordeal stopped as suddenly as it began.
Giorgos was surprised to discover he could still hear his voice; that he even had a voice to hear in the first place. He was relieved his ears had not been smashed to pieces together with his brain, which he would expect had turned to mash. But thankfully it hadn’t as it was not gibberish that came out of his mouth. ‘I don’t think I can take any more of this. First a burning light, now this. That’s a high cost to pay for this mission.’
‘Well, Giorgos, you know what they say. No pain, no gain.’
‘I don’t think when they said it that they had this in mind. Anyway… that bust… that face… does it look familiar to you?’
Aristo stared at it and thought for a while. ‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘Doesn’t it look like the face of the last Byzantine Emperor, Konstantinos XI Palaiologos?’
‘It could be.’
As they were looking at it, the bust left its niche and flew around the hall touching different parts of the building as it went. They looked up and followed its progress.
There, close to the roof, they could see words appear and disappear across the four corners of the hall, place-names in shining crystal letters as if made from gleaming diamonds: “Constantinople”, “Athens”, “Alexandria” and on the fourth wall, instead of a place-name, the following inscription appeared: “Save the places that cure the soul.”
They remembered the inscription above the entrance to the Library: “The place that cures the soul.”
‘Giorgos, which are the places that cure the soul?’
‘It’s the libraries, isn’t it? This is supposed to be the biggest library at this time and for a few centuries to come. You remember about Ptolemy’s ban on the export of papyrus. That continued with his successors. Well, that was the reason for the enlightened rulers of Pergamon in Asia Minor to experiment with the development of a new writing material. And what they came up with was parchment made from treated animal hides. That was what came to be called pergamene in Greek, from the name of the place where it was invented, Pergamon. This would, in the next few decades, lead to Pergamon possessing a great library, second only to Alexandria with an estimated two hundred thousand manuscripts to Alexandria’s estimated seven hundred thousand. I think that in Pergamon may lie something to help us with our quest.’
Aristo raised a hand to shush Giorgos. ‘Just a minute. Didn’t Mark Anthony gift the Pergamon Library collection to Queen Cleopatra of Egypt sometime between 43 and 31 B.C.? And didn’t you say earlier that it was rumoured that the Alexandrian collection was moved by Emperor Constantine to his new capital, Constantinople? Shouldn’t we try to find something there? Wouldn’t that be easier?’
Giorgos shook his head. ‘No, it wouldn’t. That is a rumour. No real evidence has ever been found to support that rumour. It’s just speculation. Any trail has gone cold long ago and it would be impossible to find out the truth. We wouldn’t know where to start. Anyway, how are we going to get to Pergamon while it was still a great cultural centre? It would have to be around 133 B.C.’
‘Maybe we don’t have to. We could go through the same transformation as with Alexandria. What looks almost certain is that we need to get there.’
Suddenly, the bust, that had still been flying around the hall, stopped to rest on a table in front of Giorgos and Aristo. The table was heavily laden with scrolls. And then the bust started to move with lightning speed from scroll to scroll and seemed to be writing in each scroll and once it was done it bound them into one manuscript, looked at them and bowed and then landed next to the manuscript and stopped moving.
Giorgos and Aristo walked to the table. Aristo picked up the manuscript, but whatever was written there was incomprehensible. Then he had an inspiration. He passed his palm over the characters and, before their eyes, the words formed in the air. Then the words were transformed into still and then moving pictures and a series of places unfolded. They saw Athens and Alexandria, Constantinople and Cappadocia.
The last image was so incomplete as to stump them both. Then straight lines shot upwards from each place and where the lines met stood an enthralling structure, a glittering vision of transparent crystal, shooting sparks one moment and sitting benevolent the next. Aristo remembered his experience in Ayia Sophia on the second day. The fifth line infusing energy into the structure seemed to be coming from somewhere in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Flocks of glorious eagles and falcons glared at the structure, and then back at Aristo. He looked deep into their eyes, and, in pairs, they interlocked into one symbol, a flock of double-headed eagles with the falcons holding them two-abreast and they were marching supported by the falcons that emitted the most wonderful eerie sounds.
Giorgos suddenly became very animated, as if he had been bitten by a wasp.
Aristo, look.’
As the images flew passed their eyes and the slide-show came to an end, there was a commotion at the other end of the hall and an influx of soldiers burst through. They crossed the large space to where Giorgos and Aristo stood within seconds. At the head of the illustrious invading force was none other than Ptolemy himself.
‘Greetings again, honoured guests. Thank you for the manuscripts. You’ve made a good choice. They will take their treasured place in this collection. Before I leave you, I will give you some help with your quest. The answer you seek, the missing piece will not be found where you expect it. The place will seem insignificant, not a centre of magnificent work and scientific excellence, but when you take the right measurements, it will make sense to you and you will see that it could not have been anywhere else. And you will feast on the temple of god and knowledge where the two meet. Find the bridge that binds all that hold this world together.’